Shit, Sachia was right. It would be foolish to risk this. Reid’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Yet Koen tapped his foot, a sign he was moments away from something brilliant.
“What about the leather tie you used to hold your hair? Do you still have it?” Koen asked.
Reid reached into his pocket where he’d stashed the leather tie. At one time, it had belonged to his father, and he just hadn’t found the strength to leave it on the ship. “It’s here.”
“Sew it into the dress,” Koen suggested.
Reid’s lips parted in shock. “That… might work.”
“Indeed,” Sachia agreed. “We just need to pick a dress. He said he didn’t care which.”
To not care… Reid bit the inside of his cheek. He stared at the velvet dresses lining the back wall, his heart clenching and searching for just a taste of her. Just toseeVaasa, to know she was okay.
What would he do when he found her? How would they escape Mekës? Escape Ozik?
Would she come with him at all?
That last question was the strangling one. The thing that welled in his body like a pool of fire. He had only had her one night. He’d heard Vaasa tell him she loved him, but she had never promised him that she would stay. Even if she had risked her life for him. Had sacrificed her magic for him.
That was the worry that haunted him.
He wasn’t sure that was a worthwhile sacrifice at all.
“May I?” Reid asked.
“Pick the dress?”
Reid nodded.
Sachia shrugged, and Koen looked at him with understanding. Reid split from them, venturing around the rows of fabric and premade garments, his eyes scanning the smooth velvet he saw at the back.
Each of them was richly colored, so soft to the touch. Such depth in the starkness of the fabric. His eyes landed upon a dark navy dress with no extra decorations or appliqués. It was sosimple in its design, yet his eyes couldn’t leave it. She would look stunning in a dress like this.
“This one,” he said, running his index finger along the fabric.
Sachia stared at him like he was a lovesick fool, and perhaps it was an apt description. He didn’t care. He clenched the leather tie tightly in his fist.
Sachia merely nodded, walking to find the seamstresses. In moments, the navy blue dress was pulled down from the wall, and Reid handed Sachia the tie.
CHAPTER
15
On the morning of their first outing, Lord Karev sent Vaasa a gift.
It came in a large box, one the sentinels hauled into her rooms after Vaasa had finished training with Ozik. When Vaasa opened it, she came upon a pile of deep navy blue velvet. Carefully, she ran her fingers over the soft fabric before pulling it from the box. It was a long-sleeved dress, so stark in its simplicity, the real decoration of the dress being the fabric itself. With a narrower skirt that didn’t hoop out from her waist, she was silently grateful for a more utilitarian shape that didn’t feature such useless grandeur. She lifted it from the box and inspected the dress, her heart racing.
It was stunning.
For a moment she paused, wondering if this was all more than she could handle. Still, she slipped the dress over her chemise and adjusted how it hung on her body, admiring the fit. There was a small scrape against her hip, and she felt along the dress, noticing a bump. She slid the dress off again, turning it inside out to get a better look.
Her breath hitched.
There, sewn into the inside lining of the dress, was a leather tie.
She knew such a leather tie. Had run her fingers over it, had watched it in the heat of an Icrurian summer, had fought the temptation to pull it from Reid’s hair and run her fingers through the strands.
It looked a lot like Reid’s leather tie.
